Whose stories are they? Fans’ engagement with soap opera narratives in three sites of fan activity

Abstract

Soap opera narratives are subject to multiple and conflicting claims of "ownership" about who is entitled to make evaluative judgments about quality. Our research examines how dedicated fans' claims are mediated within three sites: fan clubs, daytime magazines, and electronic bulletin boards. These sites differ in the frequency and visibility of fan interaction and in the degree to which fan discourse can be managed by producers, which in turn shapes social interaction among fans and the legitimacy with which they can assert claims to the narrative.Television programs are both commodities and cultural products. Their production takes place within a context of conflict over creative and financial considerations among a variety of different organizations, groups, and individuals (Cantor & Cantor, 1992;DiMaggio, 1977;Montgomery, 1989). Research on the television industry finds that network programmers are confronted with managing the inherent conflicts and contradictions that arise from juggling commercial and aesthetic assessment criteria in their search for financial success . Despite network executives' best efforts, there are never guarantees that audiences' tastes will coincide with what programmers hope will be commercially successful products (Gitlin, 1983).Commercial success is the bottom line for anything that airs on network television. Programmers care primarily that their product appeals to large numbers of viewers with demographic profiles that advertisers value, and care little about the meanings, significance, or ritual that television fulfills as a cultural product to a core audience of dedicated fans (Cantor & Cantor, 1986). In the business of television, viewers matter more than fans, but the product itself matters more to fans than to other viewers. The distinction between a television viewer and a television fan is an important one. To "view" television is to engage in a relatively private behavior. To be a "fan," however, is to participate in a range of activities that extend beyond the private act of viewing and reflects an enhanced emotional involvement with a television narrative. Such activities may include purchasing or subscribing to fan magazines, writing letters to actors, producers, writers, or to fan publications, conversing with other fans on electronic bulletin boards, joining fan clubs, attending fan events, and

Movement Societies and Digital Protest: Fan Activism and Other Nonpolitical Protest Online

“…Our data allow us to go beyond hypothesis testing to describe the contours of this emerging trend. Below we elaborate on these claims, given their novelty to many social movement scholars as well as many scholars of fan activism, since research on fan activism has tended to study big examples such as Star Trek (Jenkins 2006) and soap opera fan organizing (Bielby et al 1999; Scardaville 2005).…”

Mediating Diasporas and Fandom: Second-Generation Korean American Adolescent Diasporas, Identification, and Transnational Popular Culture

“…As Bielby (1999) noted, fans are different than viewers because of the additional activities in which they engage, engagement in fan communities, and ravenous consumption of their favored cultural texts and celebrities. Their difference, though, is primarily in degree rather than category (Fiske, 1992).…”

O velho e o novo: os sentidos construídos pelos fãs de telenovela em tempos de convergência das mídias

“…Muitas das publicações e comentários demonstram o quanto gostam da telenovela -por meio de elogios aos personagens, atores, direção, autores e, também, através de expressiva interação e debate entre os participantes do grupo acerca das cenas, do roteiro e dos capítulos futuros. Essa dinâmica endossa a compreensão de que "ser um fã é participar de uma série de atividades que se estendem para além do ato privado de ver e reflete um maior envolvimento emocional reforçado com a narrativa da televisão" (BIELBY et al, 1999: 35 apud LOPES et al, 2011 tanto nos momentos de crítica aos vilões quanto na torcida pelo final feliz dos mocinhos.…”